A newborn girl who had been infected with the new coronavirus has recently recovered, a hospital in Seoul said Friday.

The youngest Covid-19 patient in Korea, who was admitted in just 27 days after birth, was discharged after 18 days of treatment at the hospital, said Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center.

According to SMG-SNU Boramae hospital, the newborn girl showed only mild nasal congestion with a slight fever of 37.6 degrees Celsius on the first day of hospitalization. However, on the next day, the body temperature rose to 38.4 degrees, accompanied by coughing.

She was believed to have contracted the virus from her family in early March.

Medical workers in the quarantined ward, where the infected newborn stayed, went on high alert. They administered an antipyretic agent to lower her body temperature and wiped her body many times with sterilized wet towels.

“She was not an adult or a child, but a newborn baby who was only 27 days old. So, I had to be careful about even the smallest part of the treatment,” said Han Mi-seon, a professor of the Pediatrics Department at SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center.

Head nurse Yim Yeong-seon said the hospital placed the baby’s room to the nearest space of the medical staff so that they could respond to an urgent situation as quickly as possible. “We checked the baby’s blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and body temperature three times a day and monitored her 24 hours a day,” Yim said.

The newborn did not have difficulty breathing, and a series of chest X-rays showed no abnormalities. Thus, the medical team allowed her mother to continue breastfeeding rather than administering antiviral or antibacterial drugs and kept monitoring the baby’s symptoms.

The hospital had to test the breast milk of her infected mother for Covid-19 because infected milk could prolong the baby’s Covid-19 infection. The hospital detected no virus in the mother’s milk.

After the health professionals’ concerted efforts, the newborn’s health improved. The body temperature came back to normal. After 13 days of hospitalization, the baby girl was free from major symptoms such as coughing or nasal congestion.

Since then, the hospital ran the Covid-19 test on the newborn two times, and the final results came out as negative. After 18 days of hospitalization, the baby girl returned home with her fully recovered mother on March 26, the hospital said.

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